in regard to the penalty for adultery in ancient India. In the first place, it is understood that the adultery of the husband ought not to trouble the wife at all. "Although the conduct of her husband may be blameworthy, and he may give himself up to other amours and be devoid of good qualities, a virtuous woman ought constantly to revere him as a god."[1] The adultery of the woman is naturally quite another thing. "If a woman, proud of her family and her importance, is unfaithful to her husband, the king shall have her devoured by dogs in a very frequented public place."[2] If a woman of high rank, the lover also is not spared. "The king shall condemn her accomplice to be burned on a bed of red hot iron."[3] For the less aristocratic adultery the punishment varies according to the caste. "For adultery with a protected Brahmanee, a Vaisya loses all his property, after imprisonment for a year; a Kchatriya is condemned to pay a thousand panas, to have his head shaved and watered with urine of an ass." For the Brahmin the penalty is very light. "An ignominious tonsure is ordered instead of capital punishment for a Brahmin in the cases where the punishment of the other classes would be death."[4] The Soudra, on the contrary, who holds criminal commerce with a woman belonging to one of the three first classes, "shall be deprived of the guilty member, and of all his possessions, if she was not guarded; but if it was so, he loses both his goods and his existence."[5] It must be noticed, also, that very slight evidence suffices to prove adultery. "To pay little attentions to a woman, to send her flowers and perfumes, to frolic with her, to touch her ornaments or vestments, to sit with her on the same couch, are considered by wise men as proofs of an adulterous love."[6]
On the other hand, the husband, if he has had no children, can oblige his wife to give herself either to his brother or to another relative. "Anointed with liquid butter and keeping silence, let the relative charged with this office approach during the night a widow or a childless woman, and engender one single son, but never a second."
